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Mercer, Johnny

(Encyclopedia)Mercer, Johnny (John Herndon Mercer) mûrˈsər [key], 1909–76, American lyricist and songwriter, b. Savannah, Ga. Mercer, who was one of American popular music's most accomplished wordsmiths, began...

McPherson, Aimee Semple

(Encyclopedia)McPherson, Aimee Semple ĕmāˈ, məkfûrˈsən [key], 1890–1944, U.S. evangelist, founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, and, in the 1920s and 30s, one of the most famous wom...

lie detector

(Encyclopedia)lie detector, instrument designed to record bodily changes resulting from the telling of a lie. Cesare Lombroso, in 1895, was the first to utilize such an instrument, but it was not until 1914 and 191...

Black, Timuel Dixon, Jr.

(Encyclopedia) Black, Timuel Dixon, Jr., 1918-2021, American social activist and community organizer, b. Birmingham, Al., Roosevelt Univ. (B.A., 1952), Univ. of ...

Humphrey, Hubert Horatio

(Encyclopedia)Humphrey, Hubert Horatio, 1911–78, U.S. Vice President (1965–69), b. Wallace, S.Dak. After practicing pharmacy for several years, Humphrey taught political science and became involved in state pol...

Maupassant, Guy de

(Encyclopedia)Maupassant, Guy de gē də mōpäsäNˈ [key], 1850–93, French novelist and short-story writer, of an ancient Norman family. He worked in a government office at Paris and became known c.1880 as the ...

celestial mechanics

(Encyclopedia)celestial mechanics, the study of the motions of astronomical bodies as they move under the influence of their mutual gravitation. Celestial mechanics analyzes the orbital motions of planets, dwarf pl...

symbolists

(Encyclopedia)symbolists, in literature, a school originating in France toward the end of the 19th cent. in reaction to the naturalism and realism of the period. Designed to convey impressions by suggestion rather ...

rare-earth metals

(Encyclopedia)rare-earth metals, in chemistry, group of metals including those of the lanthanide series and actinide series and usually yttrium, sometimes scandium and thorium, and rarely zirconium. Promethium, whi...

comic strip

(Encyclopedia)comic strip, combination of cartoon with a story line, laid out in a series of pictorial panels across a page and concerning a continuous character or set of characters, whose thoughts and dialogues a...